Why Alternative Fashion, what's the background story? I was confronted with this question quite often in the last time, so I thought it's time to just share my story with you.

First of all I guess, I have to define, what exactly Alternative Fashion is to me. All in all, when I'm talking about Alternative Fashion, I'm talking about fashion, that is less trend fixated but more individual. I'm talking about clothes you wear for a longer time, not just for one season. I'm talking about fashion, that reveals something about you and your personality. Very important: I'm not talking about brands, since Alternative Fashion is just a market as well. I'm talking about fashion, not being defined by mainstream, I'm talking about fashion as self-expression, about fashion that leaves space for you and your personality, instead of being synchronized with a trend or a brand. If I'm talking about Alternative Fashion, I'm talking about personal style, about bold, extraordinary, strinking looks, about character, courage and beliefs. Are you asking questions? Do you want to know who made your shirt under which circumstances? Do you buy second hand, are you swapping? Do you know by yourself what you like and what speaks to you or are you indoctrinated by advertisement and media? So Alternative Fashion is much more to me, than just fashion, it's an attitude, a position to consumerism, to the fashion circus and yourself.

So why Alternative Fashion? Because I don't take trends unquestioned as given, because I don't want to follow what the industry dictates, because I want to stay true to myself. Because I want to answer the question "Who am I?" for myself, because I question who makes up all these rules, who decides and commands, what is going to be trending next season, because I don't want to be part of this fucked up machinery, because I want to express and discover my personality and my creativity through fashion, that's why.

When did all of this start for me? Good question, I have to go way back to my childhood to answer this one. At first there was Barbie. I discovered, that with different clothes she could play different characters and roles. Seems I was fascinated by playing with identity already back then. Then I saw the movie "Desperately Seeking Susan" when I was eight or nine years old and I remember it had such an impact on me, I knew I wanted to be like and look like Madonna in the movie. I was fascinated by her confidence and her looks. That was a kind of role model I never came across before. Everything developed further, when I first got in contact with punk rock and grunge with the age of twelve or thirteen thanks to my older sister. That was different, much more free and defiant in a way. I kind of liked that, the way how these people stood out from the crowd, how they clearly positioned themselves against the status quo with the help of their clothes. I liked the creativity, the diy-mentality, the fucked up, run-down looks as a middle finger and maybe also as an answer to the omnipresent pressure, especially as an adolescent girl, of always acting as required and expected by society. In the end this somehow got stuck to me, this is who I am. That's why Alternative Fashion is still a topic I'm passionate about. It's about being real, authentic and true to oneself and of course it's still a lot of fun to play with different facettes of oneself and identity, just like back then with Barbie.

You want to read another Alternative Fashion story? Go check Glam Retro Style - the name is program. Nancy plays with fashion, she's mixing up glam rock with pin up and goth. If you don't want to miss out on that in the future, go like her fb page as well. Still not enough? Go and check out Sarah's story from Tales of a Geordie Goth too. What's your Alternative Fashion story? Please share it with us!